Tea at Trianon: The Marxist Disdain For Private Property

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, April 7, 2024

The Marxist Disdain For Private Property

From The Easton Gazette:

Now we Marylanders are witnessing the rise of carjackings even as, in the rest of America, squatters are stealing homes just by moving in. I am reminded of the scene in the 1965 film Dr. Zhivago where the doctor returns from war to find that the Revolution has triumphed and that the entire neighborhood has moved into his home. Is the rise in theft due to the fact that we are being ruled by people who wanted to defund the police in order to create a non-violent Utopia?

If you ever wonder how American citizens came to have such a Communist outlook then it must be recalled that Marxist indoctrination has been occurring in colleges and universities at least since the 1930’s. By the sixties and seventies even some Catholic universities had several lefties on their faculties.

So what did Marx think of private property? He wrote a great deal about the benefits of not having it; in 1844 he wrote: “The abolition [Aufhebung] of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human senses and qualities….” (Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844) Marx thought people became more human when they had no private possessions and that the State had the right to take it from them.

This is in stark contrast to the Gospel message which implores people to willingly give up possessions for love of God. “Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me.” (Matthew 19:21) Such renunciation of material possessions in the Judeo-Christian tradition is only meritorious if done willingly, as a personal choice, not imposed by the government. (Read more.)